Need help from XL2 owners using Premiere Pro

[David Lach]

I just finished acquiring 100+ Gb of XL2 footage on my computer. I'm using Premiere Pro 1.5.

The thing is, I'm trying to split each scene by takes so I can easily delete the takes I don't like/need when editing (I want to make some room, my hard drive is maxed out). Of course, I do not want to lose quality in the process.

My footage was shot using 24p 2:3:3:2 mode. When trying to export the takes individually, Premiere gives me the option to either export it as regular NTSC or 24p (Advanced). I'm wondering which one I need to choose in order to preserve the intact footage with the 2:3:3:2 flags if there are such things.

I tested it and tried both methods and even though the size of the created AVI files is the same, WMP cannot read properly the file that was created using 24p advanced export in Premiere (it works in QT though).

Also, do I need to check the recompress (maintain data rate) box?

Is there a better way to split those long movie files (without going back to the tapes)?

Thanks for any help.

[Greg Patch]

You could make sub-clips of the footage that you want to keep and delete the originals......But i'm still on 6.5, i'm only assuming that you could do this though....

[Pete Bauer]

Yeah, a quick test using an EXPORTED 16:9 24p 2:3:3:2 clip confirms what these web pages both say:

http://www.dvfilm.com/maker/24P.htm

http://www.filmdyne.com/settings.htm

When I tried:
Export>>Movie>>MS DV AVI using "24p Advanced" (really 23.976 in the video section), WMP sort of plays the footage, but as the Filmdyne link says, it rapidly alternates between 16:9 and 4:3 which makes it unwatchable. Seems like the 16:9 vs 4:3 flag keeps getting switched back and forth. Is that what you're seeing?

Surprisingly, both the ORIGINALLY CAPTURED AVI footage and the exported clip using the DV NTSC (29.97) setting did play normally in WMP (although I don't remember which settings I used for the original capture of the 2:3:3:2 footage...must have been 24pA since it works normally in PPro). I don't understand why that is. The 24p and 30p export files were a few bytes different in file size, but almost the same. Both show 29fps in their Windows Explorer properties, as you'd expect.

So it seems that 24p Advanced mode just isn't supported by WMP, but actually is working properly within PPro. You should be able to chop the bad takes from your captured footage and export to MS DV AVI using 24p Advanced, or to tape also using 24p Advanced...I haven't done an actual export to tape, but I'll bet it will work just fine.

I think for your purposes, you don't want to check anything in the "Data Rate" area because there's no need to re-render individual frames. To maintain max quality, all you want to do is edit out areas of the timeline you don't want and export without re-compressing otherwise unchanged frames.

Don't have time to research further today, but I'm really curious about the original 2:3:3:2 file playing ok in WMP, but an otherwise unprocessed exported 24pA clip won't. Will dig into that at a later time. Hope that's enough to let you move forward with your project.

[David Lach]

Greg, making sub-clips and deleting the originals is indeed what I'm trying to do, so I can delete takes individually from the computer when the director and me sit and start figuring out the good from the bad. But although I knew how to do it with regular 60i video, I'm no longer sure with 24p footage.

Pete, I noticed the same things you mentioned. The original DV file captured from the XL2 with Premiere reads perfectly well, and an exported regular NTSC DV sequence as well, but when I choose 24p advanced in the export settings, WMP goes beserk and switches rapidly as you indicated between 4:3 and 16:9.

I'm wondering if there's a point in selecting the 24p Advanced setting when exporting. At first I though Premiere would permanantly delete the extra frame with that setting to make it a true 24p sequence, without pull down, but this is impossible since DV cannot be 24p. It is confirmed when looking in the properties, the file size remain pretty much identical and the rate is still 29.97.

I don't know if there's a point in selecting that feature. Will Premiere still be able to read the clips as 24p 2:3:3:2 sequences if I choose regular NTSC out? Is this any different than how it reads it out of the XL2? Or does it need to re-aply some kind of flags at the edit points so it can later see the 2:3:3:2 format again and re-remove the extra frame?

Very confusing. What I'd like to know is the difference, if there's any, between selecting 24p Advanced or regular NTSC when exporting from Premiere.

[Pete Bauer]

David,

I just cruised the Adobe support site and found nothing really helpful for this concern (although for those interested, Acrobat 6 and Encore 1.5 have updates available for download).

Since both the 24pA and 30p NTSC export settings are supposed to actually produce an NTSC 29.97 file, I'm not at all clear what the difference is between them -- though there must be one because the exported files are slightly different in size and behave differently under WMP. Perhaps a bit is set in each frame that flags it as either wide or narrow, and the flag gets misplaced in some frames because of the 24pA field scheme? I dunno.

I absolutely do NOT know (just guessing) but since PPro only reads -- doesn't actually rewrite -- the source file, I suspect there must be flags in the 24pA source files to allow correct identification of the repeat frames. If so, in a 24fps timeline, PPro would probably just copy the frames it is going to use to RAM and entirely ignore the repeat frames -- so the 24p timeline actually would be true 24p within the program. If that happens to be the case, then the export engine would be re-inventing the repeat frames and associated flags for the 24pA export (An alternative possibility is that if exporting 24pA, it then DOES read and apply filters etc to the source file's repeat frames and just outputs them).

It is possible that the 30p NTSC export replicates:
1) the correct fields to make the extra frames (or DOES read and apply filters to the repeat frames), or
2) not necessarily the correct fields to exactly reproduce the original 24p footage

At least we know each frame from the 30p export has its 16:9 flag in the right place. If the real answer is "1)" then the answer is simple: we can just use the 30p NTSC setting. But, if the answer is "2)" then because incorrect fields may be repeated in the 30p export, we must use the 24pA setting and simply won't be able to use WMP to preview the output because it obviously cannot read those files properly.

It may be a couple of days before my family cuts me loose from mandatory holiday fun, but I'm also very curious about this so will do some specific end-to-end tests in 24p 2:3:3:2. Since you're in the middle of a big project perhaps you'll beat me to the punch. If so, please share any info!

Or if anyone out there really knows the technical side of this, give us an early Christmas present and spare us the pain of figuring this out from scratch!

Merry Christmas to all!

[David Lach]

Well Pete, I found nothing in Adobe's help to make up my mind on which setting to choose. They sure don't go into great details about their different settings. Since I was in a hurry, I didn't have time to do extensive researching on the Internet about this, so I decided to recapture everything (hey it's just 7 hours *sigh*), this time using the automatic scene detection within Premiere (should have done this the 1st time). That way I just put the tape in, press record in Premiere and let the application seperate the different scenes by files.

I'm still interested in the answer if you find anything though, because I want to have the option to export small un-recompressed DV files from the timeline and I don't know how to do it. Should I use the 24P setting and no longer be able to watch my rushes in WMP, or should I use the regular NTSC setting, but then risk not having the 2:3:3:2 properly flaged for later 24p reconstruction. Hmmm... When the editing part of my project is over I'll dig into this more thoroughly.

[Pete Bauer]

David,

I'll type more later this evening but wanted to try to get quick
word to you -- I don't think you need to put yourself through the pain of a 7hr recapture!

I just did a test and it is pretty clear to me that everything is OK and you can use either the 24pA or 30p NTSC settings for export.

[David Lach]

Well it's already done. It wasn't a huge pain really, since all I had to do is press rec and let the whole tape run for the full 60 minutes. Premiere took the rest of the process in charge. I repeated 7 times but I was doing something else while letting it transfer in the background.

I didn't like the fact I could no longer watch the rushes in WMP by using the 24p export setting. And I'm not comfortable using any setting without knowing what the difference is.

This isn't over of course, as I will need to export other DV files later on, but right now all my footage has been seperated by takes and I can start the editing process tomorrow with the director.

I think I might write to Adobe to figure out the details of 24p importing/exporting. Of course if you find out the factual difference between the 2 export settings let me know.

[Pete Bauer]

Ok, I've gone as far as I'm presently able with this one. Here's a link to the page of my web site where I've posted clips and text:

http://www.geosynchrony.com/scratchpad.htm

Bottom line is that I'm satisfied that we can work in PPro with 24pA, but I can only guess at how the 24pA source video from the camera is different than the 24pA exported video from PPro.

Merry Christmas everyone!

[Andrew Oh]

Hey guys, I didn't have a chance to read through all the posts in this thread but I think I can help.

Shooting in 2:3:3:2 isn't 24P Advanced mode.

Shooting in 2:3 is.

What happens when you shoot in 2:3:3:2 is it actually takes your 24p footage and makes it 29.97. Thus when you export, I'd export it as 29.97 (not 24P Advanced) and use software like DV Filmmaker to take your 29.97 footage and convert to 24P advanced (2:3).

The DV Film Maker site is a little confusing. Hope that helps.

[Pete Bauer]

Andrew,

Unfortunately, I think you're mistaken about that. Both modes are intended to change 24fps to 30fps and vice versa. They are just different field repetition patterns to attain it.

I double checked Panasonic's own manual on the DVX100A. On page 62, it does show 2:3 as being 24p and 2:3:3:2 as 24pA, or "24p ADV".

[Andrew Oh]

Hey Pete,

I'm so confused! LOL! Now I get it. Thanks for clearing it up for me.

[Pete Bauer]

No sweat...it IS confusing -- as evidenced by the many posts on the subject. And that's why I post about it...trying to answer questions other people have forces me to REALLY dig in and LEARN a subject, although with this one the lessons don't seem to "stick" too well!

Now that I think about it, the Panasonic manual's diagram was very detailed. It used capital and small letters to represent various fields; I've just guessed on all that before. I think I'll pull that up later when I get home and see exactly which fields the 2:3:3:2 pattern repeats! Neither PPro nor the XL2 manual has diagrams as clear and complete as the Panny's on this subject.

[Clint Comer]

If I read this right all you wanted to do is take your large video files and chop them up into smaller ones that you are going to use and get rid of the stuff you aren't? If that's the case just start laying the clips into the timeline of the ones you are using. When you are done you just run a project trim and it will make new video files of what you used. Then you just delete the old ones. That is of course if you have the room for the new files. If you are truely maxed out then you will have to do it in chuncks. When you captured the footage did you use the batch capture option? It's a great tool I was taught. You go through and make a list of all the clips you want to capture. It records the in and out points of the clip. You can also make comments about the clips. Then once you are all done you save it to a batch file and when you are ready you just load the tape into the camera and hit go. It goes and captures the files you told it to. It is an extra step but you are left with the batch file where lets say your hard drive crashes or files become corupt, all you have to do is load the tapes and the batch file and recapture what you had. It's how I archive my stuff. I keep the project files and batch files and if I ever have to go back and rework something I can have the project back up in a matter of a few hours. I love this feature. The project trim is just as cool. Because it cuts out all the crap you didn't use and gives you a new batch file.

Maybe you knew this, maybe you didn't, but I thought I would throw it out there.